song of the sirens

As I develop new work, a big part of that involves reading books for research and inspiration. I’ve always had an interest in myths but especially the ones that have shaped so much of Western culture and ideas. I’m interested in the women in these stories because they become the models by which we are judged.

I was excited to find a book called Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology, by Jess Zimmerman. The author is interested in unpacking these stories to see both how they operate in mainstream culture and their influence in her own life. Her focus is of course on the monster women in classical mythology, of which there are many. She has an essay about the sirens. We all know how seductive they are, with their witchy songs to tempt men to their death. There’s this idea that their beauty and their charms are only for destructive purposes- sirens of the cinema, the femme fatale, the cunning seductress. I think of the movie that came out in the 90’s, The Last Seduction. In it, the main character, played chillingly by Linda Fiorentino, is a woman who uses her seductiveness to manipulate the men around her. Her ability to control every situation and every man and turn them to her advantage is astonishing. The sex she has is for her own purposes and she remains emotionally aloof throughout. By the end, she has murdered, entrapped and stolen her way to what she wanted- all the money and no encumbrances. The final scene is of her sitting comfortably alone in the back of a limo. At the time, I found the movie shocking but also eye opening. You just didn’t see female characters like that- who cared only about their own wants and needs and would destroy any man to achieve them. And in the end, there’s no moral finger wagging or delivery of justice to tidy things up. The criminal mastermind super villain gets to sail off into the sunset, already plotting her next move.

At first, I felt sorry for the male characters who were being duped by this highly intelligent woman. But then I couldn’t help marveling at her audacity. Because by the end, I realized they had been using her too, it’s just that they didn’t think so. Her beauty, her sexiness, her unavailability was the ‘song’ that lured them. But it’s a song men created in the first place- she only sang it because she knew that’s what they would respond to.

I think this image of a siren or femme fatale fascinates men because there is an element of something being activated inside of themselves that they can’t control. That in the face of seductive beauty, a man will lose his will and become a slave to desire. That particular type of fear has been projected onto women for centuries and has resulted in abusive and violent measures used to deny women’s autonomy. At the end of the essay on the sirens, Zimmerman raises the possibility of the sirens signing to each other. That they may be telling a different story, if we just look for it. It’s there in the images of groups of women in Iran cutting off their hair and waving it defiantly around in public squares. And it’s there in the 25,000 Icelandic women and non-binary people who last week gathered at a rally for gender pay equality. And it’s in groups of women who come together to share ideas, make art and have a good time. These new beauties are calling from within us and they have so much to say- if only we listen.

Sirens

Being the grasshopper

When you choose to make art for your life, it does bring with it a fair amount of self reflection. As in, why do I keep doing this thing that makes no money and no one seems to need? And then I think about my mother, who was also a visual artist, and who was so good at making me feel it was important work. She died over a year ago and I’m still grappling with who she was and the meaning of her life. When she died, it was summer and the crickets were just starting to come out. There was a huge one, with green legs and a brown body, we discovered in the house one day. It was perched on a curtain and we kept seeing it for almost two weeks after my mom died.

There’s a story about my parents that my mom used to tell me. My dad never approved of my mother’s vagabond ways- she liked to roam and enjoy life to its fullest. He told her once that she was like the grasshopper in the story of the ant and the grasshopper. While she laughed and sang, he was, of course, the ant, working diligently all through the summer so that there would be enough to eat through the winter. The fable does cast a negative light on the grasshopper who as soon as it gets cold, comes knocking on the ants door and is refused entry by the ant. The ant says, ‘if you sang all summer, then you can sing all winter too,” and shuts the door. That’s one cold hearted ant. I read another version of this story, years later, in a picture book. In the new version, when winter comes the grasshopper is welcomed into the home of the ant because he brings song and light and the beauty that is so sorely needed to endure long winters. To me, it’s always been a metaphor for art. There are those who see it as frivolous, and unnecessary. In a society that sees money as the marker of success, artists can seem like the grasshoppers- singing, dancing, but not making any ‘real value’.

This painting is in honor of my mom. It’s partly a self portrait but also not. The woman in the painting is a version of me, one who is mourning, with partly shaved head, looking into the twinkling light of her mother’s love. She wears a kind of armor but it’s green as is her skirt. Green like the grasshopper that perches on her leg. My mother always protected me from the violence of the world, in ways she hadn’t been. She was my armor for much of my life, and even when she wasn’t there I could feel her protection around me. She defended my right to be an artist, to make beauty and express myself. She understood that without art, our hearts will shrivel and harden. The ants need us more than they realize.

The Grasshopper, oil on canvas